Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

chewmylegoff

zagubov wrote: »

Earlier tonight the TV had a documentary on supermarket "price wars"; with the big chains seeming to take us for idiots.

Next there's a documentary about RBS and where it all went wrong, and we get to see industrial-strength idiocy.

A very MSE evening's telly! Also a not very uplifting one.:(

You seem to be a bit behind schedule. May I advise you not to bother watching the RBS one. I just watched it and it was particularly unenlightening. As usual, anything to do with finance is presented in a patronising and basic manner by the BBC, probably because the people making the programme didn't understand the subject matter and were relying on some guardian journalist who didn't understand it either to explain it to them.

GDB2222

I watched Robert Peston's programme that was on recently, and it took an hour to cover 5-10 minutes' material.

zagubov

chewmylegoff wrote: »

You seem to be a bit behind schedule. May I advise you not to bother watching the RBS one. I just watched it and it was particularly unenlightening. As usual, anything to do with finance is presented in a patronising and basic manner by the BBC, probably because the people making the programme didn't understand the subject matter and were relying on some guardian journalist who didn't understand it either to explain it to them.

It's a lot to fit in an hour and I feel a bit better informed. Every time I went to New England from the 80s onward, RBS seemed to have a higher profile. Relatives in the Us were always bemused by how small a lot of the American banks were- I heard there was a law at one point that limited how many states a bank could operate in but I'm sure that must be a myth.

The supermarket one confirmed a lot of my suspicions about the obsessions with pseudo-bargains the big chains are trying to inculcate in us. Almost makes me nostalgic for RRPs.

chewmylegoff

GDB2222 wrote: »

I watched Robert Peston's programme that was on recently, and it took an hour to cover 5-10 minutes' material.

yeah. basically the premise of the programme was that we live in a global economy now, and the dole in the UK is a lot higher than wages paid in china, thus there might be some rather serious issues with the UK's competitiveness in said global economy.

that point could have been made in about 38 seconds and i could have spent the rest of that hour doing something useful like watching yet another documentary about the battle of kursk on the military history channel.

zagubov

GDB2222 wrote: »

I watched Robert Peston's programme that was on recently, and it took an hour to cover 5-10 minutes' material.

Well for years I thought that for science stories, the horizon team had perfected that to a fine art. Not really surprising they do the same for other types of documentaries.

Malcolm.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

You seem to be a bit behind schedule. May I advise you not to bother watching the RBS one. I just watched it and it was particularly unenlightening. As usual, anything to do with finance is presented in a patronising and basic manner by the BBC, probably because the people making the programme didn't understand the subject matter and were relying on some guardian journalist who didn't understand it either to explain it to them.

A couple of days ago the BBC was showing footage of a financial committee. The attendees started talking about gilts and short bonds, at which point the BBC quickly cut back to the presenters who said something along the lines of 'let's leave it there as it gets technical'. My wife and I exchanged glances, and she said 'awwww just as it gets interesting'.

It's why it's usually left on bloomberg (i.e. when it's not showing peppa pig).

chewmylegoff

zagubov wrote: »

It's a lot to fit in an hour and I feel a bit better informed. Every time I went to New England from the 80s onward, RBS seemed to have a higher profile. Relatives in the Us were always bemused by how small a lot of the American banks were- I heard there was a law at one point that limited how many states a bank could operate in but I'm sure that must be a myth.

The supermarket one confirmed a lot of my suspicions about the obsessions with pseudo-bargains the big chains are trying to inculcate in us. Almost makes me nostalgic for RRPs.

actually i was being a bit harsh i suppose as it was interesting to watch the footage of the RBS analyst briefings. that said, it's not like the BBC had any input into that footage.

analyst: "what is your tier 1 capital ratio"

RBS chairman: "whatyoutalkingaboutwillis????"

chewmylegoff

zagubov wrote: »

Well for years I thought that for science stories, the horizon team had perfected that to a fine art. Not really surprising they do the same for other types of documentaries.

the BBC are somewhat hamstrung by not being able to follow the format used by channels with ad breaks, where you can just spend the 5 minutes before the ad break saying what's coming up, then the 5 minutes after the ad break doing exactly the same, then it's time to have another ad break. repeat until the hour is up....

chewmylegoff

Malcolm. wrote: »

A couple of days ago the BBC was showing footage of a financial committee. The attendees started talking about gilts and short bonds, at which point the BBC quickly cut back to the presenters who said something along the lines of 'let's leave it there as it gets technical'. My wife and I exchanged glances, and she said 'awwww just as it gets interesting'.

It's why it's usually left on bloomberg (i.e. when it's not showing peppa pig).

the RBS program used the term "slicing and dicing" about 100 times. why not just explain what a !!!!!!! CDO is. it's not actually that difficult to understand.

instead we get all this nonsense about how the bankers were "slicing and dicing" mortgage debt, and constant suggestions that complicated financial engineering and advanced maths is at play.

"this is too difficult for you to understand so we won't bother trying to explain it" is pretty patronising when it's actually not all that complex at all.

vivatifosi

SingleSue wrote: »

I watched the one about the supermarkets.....I thought it was normal to carefully check the prices compared to weights, or if the deals work out cheaper or more expensi e than usual etc but obviously, it isn't!

Or am I just ever so slightly strange........

If you're strange, then I'm every bit as strange as you. When la Rayworth was saying about she doesn't have time to work out the differences, she shouldn't have to, it should be instantaneous and in her head. Battling the supermarkets: a form of mental arithmetic and logic puzzle, but unlike a Sudoku you get a cash reward at the end. What could be better?